Timeline of Influential Milestones and Turning Points in Film History

Timeline of Influential Milestones and Important Turning Points in Film History

1900s

Herein is a detailed timeline of the key film milestones, important turning points, and significant historical dates or events (organized by decade) that have had a significant influence on the world body of cinema and shaped its development. For more detailed accounts of many items, also see this site's extensive narratives on Film History by Decade, Film Milestones in Visual and Special Effects, and a comprehensive History of the Academy Awards.

Index to Timeline of Greatest Film Milestones and Turning Points

(by decade)

Pre-1900s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s
1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

1900s - Part 1

Year	Event and Significance
1900s	Movies became a popular attraction in amusement arcades, music halls, traveling fairs, wax museums, and vaudeville houses in many countries.
1900	The Eastman Kodak company first introduced the Brownie camera, a very simple cardboard box camera that used roll film. Its original list price was $1.00.
1901	With the arrival of electricity, Broadway set out white lights stretching from 13th to 46th Street in New York City, inspiring the nickname "the Great White Way."
1901	Thomas Edison's "Black Maria" film studio, often called America's first movie studio, was closed, and it was demolished two years later.
1902	The first permanent movie house exclusively designed for showing motion pictures was Thomas Tally's Electric Theater, built in Los Angeles (on South Spring Street) in 1902 - the first for the city, and one of the first modern movie palaces. It was also a precursor to the more ubiquitous nickelodeons that opened in 1905. Tally was the first to show a color film there, in 1912.
1902	Georges Méliès, a magician-turned-filmmaker, introduced innovative special effects in the first real science fiction film, Le Voyage Dans La Lune, aka A Trip to the Moon. This was his 400th film - a narrative fantasy of long shots strung together, punctuated with disappearances, double exposures, and other trick photography and elaborate sets.
1903	American director Edwin S. Porter, chief of production at the Edison studio, helped to shift film production toward narrative story telling with such films as the first realistic (or documentary) film The Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, one of the first westerns (filmed on the East Coast in New Jersey - not in Hollywood). The latter, a 12-minute dramatic film, was the first to use modern film techniques, such as multiple camera positions, filming out of sequence and later editing the scenes into their proper order. There were 14 scenes with parallel cross-cutting between simultaneous events. It was also memorable for its audience-shocking scene (placed at the beginning or end) of a cowboy shooting his pistol directly at the camera.
1903	Hollywood was officially incorporated as a municipality.
1904	Narrative film began to become the dominant form.
1904	Georges Méliès released the first two-reel film, The Impossible Voyage (aka Le Voyage a Travers L'Impossible) - at about 20 minutes in length, it was about five times longer than the average film at the time.
1904	Marcus Loew founded Loew's Theatres - it would eventually become the longest-lived theater chain in America.
1904	The first film exchange (or distribution company) in the US, the Duquesne Amusement Supply Company, was founded in Pittsburgh, PA by Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner for the distribution of films -- it was the precursor to Warner Bros. Pictures. (Some sources claimed it was formed in 1907).
1905	Harry Davis and John Davis opened their first movie theater, dubbing it a nickelodeon, in Pittsburgh. The opening feature was The Great Train Robbery. The name for the converted dance hall or theater was derived from the cost of admission -- a nickel -- and the Greek word for theater -- "odeon."
1905	Cooper Hewitt mercury lamps made it practical to shoot films indoors without sunlight.
1905	The American entertainment trade journal Variety began publication. It published its first film review in 1907.
1905	The British melodrama Rescued by Rover was produced (by Cecil Hepworth). It was a very early example of suspenseful cutting and traveling shots.
1906	J. Stuart Blackton made the earliest surviving example of an animated film - a 3-minute short or cartoon called Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. It was the first cartoon to use the single frame method, and was projected at 20 frames per second. In the film, a cartoonist's line drawings of two faces were 'animated' (or came to life) on a blackboard. The two faces smiled and winked, and the cigar-smoking man blew smoke in the lady's face; also, a circus clown led a small dog to jump through a hoop.
1906	The world’s first feature-length film at 70 minutes in length, The Story of the Kelly Gang (aka Ned Kelly and His Gang), premiered in Melbourne, Australia. Cinema briefly flourished there.
1906	The Biograph film studio opened in New York City.
1906	Edwin S. Porter directed the amusing fantasy film Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, using trick photography. [The name was based on a Winsor McCay newspaper comic strip - McCay served as the film's writer.] It was the Edison Company's most popular film of the year.